Going West

Ezra drifted out of the cold Misouri wind into the train depot.  Brown, White and Ezra were as wide-eyed as starving kids in a candy store.  Not one of them had seen such a sight as the Kansas City Depot.  All sorts of sounds, hundreds of people shuffling about, the PA announcing destinations from all around the country, and more echoed through the cavernous interior.  “New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Dallas, San Francisco,” exotic names adding a rich flavor to exotic surroundings.  The three soldiers wondered about the depot taking in all the sights.

Even Brown was silenced by the grandeur for a while.  Until he heard their own train’s arrival time announced.  “Say, Ezra,” he began, Whad’ya think this team L we’re in is all about.”  Brown, along with all the members of Team L, wondered what they were getting into.  Each had been pulled from their regular unit and given mysterious orders to join Team L on a specific train and report to a specific sergeant.  Such orders were SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) now that a war was on.  But Team L didn’t know that.

“‘Dunno, Brown.”  Ezra returned.

“Whad’about you, White.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, Y’know what I thank?”  Brown lowered his voice,”I think that we’re gonna be sent on a secret mission.  You know, behind enemy lines.  We’re gonna sneak behind the Japs, see, and radio their position back to the fella’s doin’ the shootin’.”

“Think so, Brown?” Ezra was spell-bound.  White was much more skeptical.

“Come on, Brown!”

“We’re radio men, aren’t we?  An’ we’re the best, aint we?  And we’re all on the way to some ‘destination unknown’ aren’t we?  It all adds up.”

“Makes sense,” Ezra concluded.  “Maby we’ll get a medal or sumpthin.”  To himself he added, “might as well, We gonna go get killed anyways.”

“Sure!” Brown finished.

“Brown, you’ve had one too many sips on that bottle in your pocket.” White said, “And Ezra, you ort’ to be ashamed of y’self, listening to this dreamer.”  He felt good, shooting down Brown’s balloon.  Silence hung around the trio until Brown overcame his temper.

“Let’s go find that USO!”  Ezra spoke, trying to break the ice.

“Sure, Ezra.”  Brown headed for the back entrance of the depot, where they had been told the USO was.

Entering the USO club three abreast, they acted as if they were visiting generals.  Ezra refused to turn in his ’45.  He chose to keep it impressively, if somewhat painfully, tucked into his belt. Then he found a perch near the coffee urn where he drank gallons of coffee and ate a couple dozen doughnuts, and watched Brown try to dance with every skirt in the place.  Benny Goodman, the King of Swing, boomed from huge RCA speakers, rattling the walls.  Ezra felt out of place.  He preferred the twang of Grand Ol’ Opry guitars and banjos. 

Dreamily he sank back against the wall and tuned the music out, hearing instead the strains of Hank Williams over his crystal radio headset he had made himself.  He’d listened to the live broadcast from WSM from Nashville, Tennessee. 

 Some dancing sailor swung too far and bumped Ezra, bringing him out from his revere’.  He wondered if he’d ever hear the Grand Ol’ Opry again.

When the night was spent Ezra, Brown and White collected themselves in front of the USO.  Joining up with another contingent of Team L, they all returned in a swagger to the train.  In less than an hour the train was heading west.  Brown unwound by spinning Texas yarns about Texas women and Texas whiskey.  Ezra sat morosely  watching huge snow-banks zoom by the train.

Eventually Team L settled in to a long winter night.  As per Army regulations, the team shared wide pullman sleeping berths, two to a bunk.  This while several perfectly good sleepers were empty.  Over crowding had not yet caught up with Army reg’s to make sense of them.  Not in those confusing final days of 1941.

“Ogdon!  Ogdon, Utah!”  The train was chasing a setting sun as it neared its next stop.  Team L watched the chunky porter meander down the aisles calling out the name of Ogden.  Another new place, Ezra thought.  He wondered if he’d ever be able to remember all the new places he was going.  Then the ever-present little twinge in his stomach told him it wouldn’t matter.  He’d never get home to tell someone about it.

“Listen Up!”  Sargent Biver, in his own special way, appeared from nowhere and called his team together.  “We’re coming into Ogden.  There’s gonna be a few hours to get out’a this train and stretch.  There’s s’posed to be a USO or something down town.  It’s a ways off, so’s you’re gonna have to walk.  Don’t get back late.  And Don’t get into no trouble in none of those bars!  Got that Brown?”  Biver addressed his favorite troublemaker.

“Yes Sir, Sarge!”

“That goes for all ‘a ya’!”

Mumbles from the team erupted after Biver’s speech ended.  He gave all of them his customary mean look and went back to do whatever it was sergeants do.

Brown started to spruce himself up.  He mumbled to himself, “booze and broads.  Booze and broads.  yes, sir, sarge.  No trouble from me.”

“You comin’ Ezra?”  Brown ask.

“Naw, you fellas go on.”  Brown shrugged.  He joined a group of team members swarming toward the town.  Ezra knew sure enough that Brown was headed for trouble.  He did not want to be there.

“Isn’t your name Ezra?”

Ezra turned around to see who ask.  Williamson, a squat, chunky PFC stood nearby.  Williamson joined the team in Kansas City.  He came from a post out East somewhere.

“Yep.  You’re  Williamson?”

“That’s right.  Aren’t you going into town?

“Naw, Brown’s headin’ for trouble.  I think I’ll just get myself some coffee in here and write a letter home.”  He motioned toward the depot.

“Want some company?”

“That’d be fine.”  Ezra started toward the depot.  He pulled a V-mail letter blank from his pocket and fished for a pencil.  They entered the depot and sought out a booth in the coffee shop and ordered coffee and a role each.

Ezra started to write.  He felt self-conscious, writing while Williamson sat sipping coffee next to him.  After he wrote a few lines he looked up.  “Don’t you go to bars?”

“I’ve been in’em.  But I don’t drink or nothing.”

“No?  Me neither.  Why not?”

“Don’t really believe in it.  I’m Baptist.”

“Yeah?”  Ezra though maybe he had found a friend.  “I’m a Methodist.”

“Almost the same thing.”

“Sure is.”  A friendship was born.

“Where you from, Ezra?”

“Arkansas.  Murfreesboro Arkansas.”

The next hour and a half passed quickly.  The two lonely GI’s escaped into nostalgic recollections of Sunday afternoon picnics and Friday night socials.  They talked about all the things lonely country boys find amusing and interesting.

“Dang, time’s almost gone.”  Ezra stared at the huge clock above the ticket counters in the depot

“Sure is.  Want to get some fresh air before we get back on that train?  I need a smoke.”

“OK.”  Ezra stuffed his letter back into his pocket.  Outside, the cold Utah air bit at their lungs.  They shared a smoke.  From toward town a distant “pop” came echoing off the Depot.

“What was that?”

“Sounded like a gun!”

“Probably just an old car backfiring.”

“Yeah.  Probably.”  Neither were too sure. Not too many minutes had passed before the unmistakable voice of Brown came to them on a light breeze.  He was doing a very bad rendition of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” 

Ezra and Williamson wandered in the general direction of the noise.  As the drunken private’s voice grew more pronounced it became accompanied by grunts and groans.  Out of the shadows appeared an astonishing sight. 

Brown was hunched over the porter from the train, one arm around the porter’s neck and the other arm holding a nearly-full bottle of rye whiskey with the other.  Ezra wondered how the Porter could hold Brown up.  His feet were dragging along behind as dead weight most of the time.

Williamson jumped in and helped the Porter.  Ezra tagged along.  Too occupied to speak, the porter motioned for them to hurry and get Brown on the train.  The three maneuvered Brown through the narrow door and dumped him unmercifully on a bunk.  Brown drifted off to sleep.

 The porter slipped Brown’s whiskey jug from his hands.  Looking from Ezra to Williamson, he said, “payment for services rendered.”  The two shrugged.  “If the cops come, this guy is not  here.”

“Why?”

“Just never you mind.  He just isn’t here here.”  The porter left.

Ezra reached down and unbuckled Brown’s web belt.  He strugled to pull it from underneath the unconscious hulk.  Slipping Brown’s ’45 from its holster, Ezra sniffed the barrel on a whim.  The tangy stench of spent gunpowder met Ezra’s astonished nose.  He looked up at Williamson quizzically.  They exchanged worried glances.  What had Brown done now, they wondered.  After stuffing the weapon into a safe place the two returned to the platform.

Half an hour later Team L had returned to the train.  Chugging noisily, the train pulled away from Ogden’s depot.  Destination Oakland, California.  Ezra sat quietly.  Brown snored peacefully—if his snoring could be called peaceful.  Ezra stared at him, wanting to wake him to find out what he had done, but he was afraid to. 

Some other guys had been with Brown but Ezra was afraid to ask them, too.  At least he hadn’t killed any of the team.

“Bed time,” the porter staggered into the rail car.  “Bed time,” he repeated.  Then he proceeded to let down all the beds, against Army regulations.  This meant that each member of the team would have a bunk to himself.  The porter became a popular fellow.

Leaning over toward Ezra, the porter slurred, “tank tat big fellah for the w’iskey.”  He was drunk. Just as the porter left out the back of the rail car, the conductor came in from the front.  He had an astonished look on his face.  “What the….” he exclaimed.  “He’s not supposed to…, Where’s that porter!”  The conductor got no answer.  He flew in a rage in pursuit of the drunken porter.

Ezra settled into a bunk next to Brown.  Next to him was White.  White leaned over to Ezra after a while and ask, “You hear what Brown did?”

“No.  What?”  Ezra was dying to know.

“Well,”  White saw he had obtained an audience, “Blame fool, that Brown.”

“Who’d he….”

“Awe, he didn’t shoot no-one!  No, it went like this.  We’s in this bar, down the road from the Depot.  We’s sitting around this table, drinking and shooting the breeze and all.  This dame, nice looker, came over and plopped into Brown’s lap.

“‘Hey, Soldier,’ she says, ‘can I snap ‘yer pistol?’  Brown looks at her all funny like.  Not sure what she was meanin’.  Then he says, ‘Oh, OK honey.’  He pulls his ’45 out and pops the clip out.  The he  cocked it and handed it to her.  She says, ‘Whoooeeeey!’ and snapped the trigger.  Then she swings it around.  Brown took it back and put the clip in it and laid it on the table.”  White was reveling in his story.  Team L, except for his star actor, was spell-bound.

“Then we went on drinkin’, and got pretty looped.  The Dame, still in Brown’s lap, says, ‘can I shoot ‘yer gun again?’  Brown reached down and racked that sucker back.  It was loaded then.  She pointed the pistol at the back of a buck sargent’s head.”

“God, she shot somebody with Brown’s gun.” someone mumbled.

“Naw, let me finish.  Brown pushed her hand up, like this, see.” White made a swinging motion with his arm.  “Then she let out another yell and pulled the trigger.  BOOM!  Blew a hole in the ceiling big as a baseball!  You haven’t ever seen scramblin’!  Ever’body in the place hit the floor and crawled under tables.   Brown grabbed his gun, we grabbed him, and we all lit out o’there.  tha’s when the porter come along.”

“Stupid Brown.” someone mumbled. “Gonna get someone killed some day.”

In time, soldiers from Team L drifted to their bunks and lay down to sleep, lulled by the rythmic clacking rails.  Ezra fell into an uneasy sleep.  He battled scrawny little devil-eyed Japs on lonely islands.  A shameless beam of morning sunlight woke him.  He grumbled.  Turning, he saw Brown sitting on his bunk disassembling his pistol. 

“Morning Ezra,” Brown mumbled.

“Mornin’ Brown.”

“Not so loud, Ezra.” Brown winced. “I don’t know how I got this thing so dirty.  ‘Don’t know how it got in my duffle, either.  Say, Ezra, you take one of my shells?”

“No. Why?”

“Well I sure got one missin’.”

“Oh?  What about last night?”

“What?  I dunno.  ‘Might’ave lost one.  ‘Don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember anything?”

“No.  Too much whiskey, I reckon.”

Ezra smiled.  He really didn’t.  “Well, Brown, I thought you’d remember shootin’ somebody.”

“What?” Brown sat up.  “I didn’t shoot no’body.”

“The way I hear it, y’did.”  Ezra was grinning from ear to ear.

“What’d you hear.”

“I don’t know, Brown,” Ezra was stretching it for all he could.  “I just heard you shot some fellow.  Smell of y’gun.  It’s been fired.”

Brown sniffed at the barrel.  “Oh, lord, what’ve I done?”  A look of horror swept across his face.  Ezra knew he’d have to tell Brown the truth sooner or later.  He figgured he’d wait until later. 

Before the conversation could continue Biver came into the pullman.  He approached Brown.

“Brown.”

“Sarge.”

“I hear you got into some trouble, private.”

“Ah, I don’t, ah, don’t think so, sargent Biver.”  Ezra noticed the formality.  Brown was really worried.

“Don’t think so.  I heard different.” Biver stared at Brown a very long minute.  When he got no more response except a worried look, Biver addressed the team.  “Any of you see what happened? Somebody said Brown did something.  Somebody’s causing a stink.  Something about a gun shot or something.”  Brown’s eyes became saucers.

“I hear it weren’t nothin’ but Brown shootin’ off his mouth, Sarge.”  White was speaking.  Ezra and most of the other team members were biting their tongue to keep quiet.  They could see Brown didn’t remember.

“Well, somebody’ll fess up ‘ventually.” Biver grumbled.  Just before he stepped back out the door someone spoke up.

“Say Sarge.”

“Yeah?”

“Tell you how we can win the war, quick like.”

“How’s that?”

“When we get over there, give ol’ Brown a jug of Whiskey and a riffle.  He’ll wipe the whole she-bang of Japs out.  Aint no Jap in his right mind gonna hang around.”  Laughter followed the remark.  Biver grunted and left.

All eyes turned to Brown who had forgotten he had a terrible hang-over.  He sat shaking his head and staring at the ’45 in his hand like it was a serpent.  “Lord,” he sputtered, “I got to lay off that whiskey!  I don’t want to kill nobody else.”  He couldn’t understand then what he said that was so funny.

A week later, after an uneventful final ride on the train, Ezra and all of Team L were on the deck of the U.S.S. Mariposa, standing by the rail and staring out at the country none of them ever thought they’d return to.

Original Copyright: July 7, 1989, Revised Copyright April 8, 2026